Thoughts around a Lejonklou Streamer
Posted: 2016-01-29 14:39
Hi Fredrick. I was going to make this note a PM to you personally, but then, I thought, why not, others might find this of interest. So here goes:
Glad that things are obviously going well for you with your new product.
Now, I would not presume for one minute to advise you how to design your streamer, but perhaps I might make a couple of suggestions about features you might think of putting in the box.
1) Please do have an internal volume control. All the DACs I know of have this feature on board; please make it a switchable option, as Linn do. There are some folk out there who, for example find my ADS/1 straight into a Tundra 2, much better than ADS/1 into a Majik Preamp and 2200 power amp. Several people have heard this comparison on my system; the difference is great.
So now I am saving to either get Lejonklou solo power amps, or a Lejonklou pre or a better streamer.
I think you might sell more by keeping the internal volume control as a switchable feature.
2) Obviously control software is a challenge for any small company (and Linn too apparently.) I use Lumin exclusively, have tried most of the others. The advantage with Lumin is that it keeps its data on board the control unit. i.e. it stores images and metadata actually on the iPad. Although it is a pain to reload your library after adding new tracks to your NAS, it does work more quickly and reliably. Especially if you have a large CD collection and try a track-search. Linn stuff is useless.
3) I understand you are not a great fan of Linn SPACE. I have found that after some adjustment I can get rid of some persistent bass booms in my listening room. But the main joy I have with SPACE is to be able to use it as a tone control.
Now I know most red-blooded hifi buffs do not like tone controls, but there is no escaping them. They are used in loud speaker cross-overs, in RIAA circuits, either analogue or digitally, as I hardly need to tell you. In almost all recordings of the last 40 years, digital processing and equalisation has occurred inside the recording studio. So if one has to embrace the digital domain, then use it for our advantage as much as possible.
So why do I use tone controls? At my age, my hearing, my listening room, and my musical expectation (I have told you before that I am a jazz musician), I find most recordings too bright. I like to sit in the audience not by the high hats or next to squeaking guitar strings. By using a slight downward HF slope in SPACE I can bring most of my recordings to my liking on one compromise setting. If you were to incorporate this sort of feature, your new streamer would be even greater than I am sure it is going to be. Better still have the facility for a number of pre-sets accessible from the control software. By actually being honest with oneself and admitting to using a tone control I have stopped all debate within myself about which cable sounds brightest (an expensive tone control in some circumstances). For example Linn Silvers sound very slightly brighter than Linn Blacks to my ears. But which is actually better at conveying the music? (Silvers.)
I can sense a number of sighs and curled top-lips among fellow forum readers. But I stress these points - all the features I am asking for should be switch-out-able. For those who insist on the sanctity of pure signals - forget digital, and therefore most commercial recordings. Once something is, or has been, in the digital domain, it will have been hacked, chopped, normalised, equalised, compromised, dithered, and filtered to hell and back.
If we have got to have it these days, let’s use it to our best advantage.
Just some Friday lunchtime thoughts from sunny downtown York
Donuk
—————
I hope that the original poster will forgive me for renaming this topic. The original was “The New Lejonklou Streamer” and was probably appropriate at the time, but as the project is currently awaiting a blood transfusion, “Thoughts around a Lejonklou Streamer” seemed more fitting. /Fredrik
Glad that things are obviously going well for you with your new product.
Now, I would not presume for one minute to advise you how to design your streamer, but perhaps I might make a couple of suggestions about features you might think of putting in the box.
1) Please do have an internal volume control. All the DACs I know of have this feature on board; please make it a switchable option, as Linn do. There are some folk out there who, for example find my ADS/1 straight into a Tundra 2, much better than ADS/1 into a Majik Preamp and 2200 power amp. Several people have heard this comparison on my system; the difference is great.
So now I am saving to either get Lejonklou solo power amps, or a Lejonklou pre or a better streamer.
I think you might sell more by keeping the internal volume control as a switchable feature.
2) Obviously control software is a challenge for any small company (and Linn too apparently.) I use Lumin exclusively, have tried most of the others. The advantage with Lumin is that it keeps its data on board the control unit. i.e. it stores images and metadata actually on the iPad. Although it is a pain to reload your library after adding new tracks to your NAS, it does work more quickly and reliably. Especially if you have a large CD collection and try a track-search. Linn stuff is useless.
3) I understand you are not a great fan of Linn SPACE. I have found that after some adjustment I can get rid of some persistent bass booms in my listening room. But the main joy I have with SPACE is to be able to use it as a tone control.
Now I know most red-blooded hifi buffs do not like tone controls, but there is no escaping them. They are used in loud speaker cross-overs, in RIAA circuits, either analogue or digitally, as I hardly need to tell you. In almost all recordings of the last 40 years, digital processing and equalisation has occurred inside the recording studio. So if one has to embrace the digital domain, then use it for our advantage as much as possible.
So why do I use tone controls? At my age, my hearing, my listening room, and my musical expectation (I have told you before that I am a jazz musician), I find most recordings too bright. I like to sit in the audience not by the high hats or next to squeaking guitar strings. By using a slight downward HF slope in SPACE I can bring most of my recordings to my liking on one compromise setting. If you were to incorporate this sort of feature, your new streamer would be even greater than I am sure it is going to be. Better still have the facility for a number of pre-sets accessible from the control software. By actually being honest with oneself and admitting to using a tone control I have stopped all debate within myself about which cable sounds brightest (an expensive tone control in some circumstances). For example Linn Silvers sound very slightly brighter than Linn Blacks to my ears. But which is actually better at conveying the music? (Silvers.)
I can sense a number of sighs and curled top-lips among fellow forum readers. But I stress these points - all the features I am asking for should be switch-out-able. For those who insist on the sanctity of pure signals - forget digital, and therefore most commercial recordings. Once something is, or has been, in the digital domain, it will have been hacked, chopped, normalised, equalised, compromised, dithered, and filtered to hell and back.
If we have got to have it these days, let’s use it to our best advantage.
Just some Friday lunchtime thoughts from sunny downtown York
Donuk
—————
I hope that the original poster will forgive me for renaming this topic. The original was “The New Lejonklou Streamer” and was probably appropriate at the time, but as the project is currently awaiting a blood transfusion, “Thoughts around a Lejonklou Streamer” seemed more fitting. /Fredrik